Books: The Hating Dean

SWIFTCarl Van DorenViking ($3). One of the greatest
writers of the language, Jonathan Swift has never had an adequate
biographer. Carl Van Doren's book about him will not be the best or t
he last, but it is a reminder of what a subject has been so long neglected.
Critic Van Doren has not attempted an exhaustive account, writes without footnotes
or scholarly impedimenta. Swift is less a narrative biography than an
interpretation of character.

The human centre of Swift's lifehis relations with "Stella"' and
"Vanessa"' has always been a mystery, is not cleared...